Perhaps
by SymphonyofDespair
Summary: Have you ever doubted yourself? Thought a daunting task would take you down, but it was actually, well, menial? That's what Kyoya Ootori is going through, but this daunting task is: Coping with his father's death. [Kyoya-centric one-shot on the basis of doubt and regret. Features what happened to the other hosts, however they are not physically present.]


**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Ouran High School Host Club. All characters go to their rightful owners._

_"Perhaps,"_ he contemplated, his eyes running over the paper before him steadily, unaffected by any sort of emotion as he read the letter sent by his eldest brother, _"I made the wrong decisions. Maybe it could have ended differently, if not for my own selfishness."_

The setting sun's light caught on his glasses, causing them to flash over, his onyx eyes hidden, though he felt like it was easy to know what he was feeling. Nobody was in his small, modest house with him, but somehow he felt as though he was being watched, however the feeling was not entirely unwelcome. Perhaps it was a mental cry for comfort from the paper that he had just read; his heart stopping for a moment when he got news of his father's death. He knew it would come someday, but he had, with time, grown accustomed to non-formal discussions and lunches with that man, the man that he once so hated.

And now it hurt to have lost him.

The young man, still in his mid-twenties, stood, picking up the paper before walking into the kitchen, posting it on the refrigerator without a second of hesitation. He wasn't sure if it was for "closure" or just to keep the dull pain in his chest alive, but the reason behind it told him to keep that there and wake up every morning with a reminder that his father was gone, along with his ability to make decisions that had no consequences. It wasn't truly that he acted on impulses or without thinking; he simply enjoyed the freedom of leaving his house without having to think about the questions that people would ask him, or his family-the sheer ability to ignore what was said to him. His father answered all of them for him. But now he would be flooded with questions about how he _felt_; a topic best left unquestioned and unanswered.

His gaze shifted to his cellphone, something much newer than the one from his teenage years, his eyebrows creasing slightly when he picked it up and scrolled through his contacts, simply looking for somebody to talk to. The hosts had said that their friendship would last forever, that nothing would be able to rip them apart, be it college, new friends, or even marriage. But here he was, the former vice president of the club, without a single phone number of theirs in his contacts to show for it. They all- in their own right- went separate ways. Tamaki had returned to France to find his mother, and ended up marrying Éclair Tonnerre [now Éclair Suoh], Haruhi had gotten her degree- whatever the girl had decided on- in America, then married Ritsu Kasanoda. Honey and Mori were, well, he couldn't say, and the two twins were off touring the world with their fashion lines, Hikaru's for men and Kaoru's for women. The last part of the puzzle was he, himself, in theory. And what had he made of himself? A forklift's worth of nothingness: no partner to speak of, a job that had been all-but handed to him, and a couple of degrees that he would never use.

And with that thought, he sat down, grabbing one of the leather-bound, three-ringed notebooks that he so loved from the time that he was ten until the day that he finished college before writing three simple words, nothing extremely special.

_"Who am I?"_

This elicited a seed of thought in him; he sat there for hours thinking about it until he finally noticed that the sun was gone. He had reached a conclusion, though it wasn't truly an answer.

_"Yes,"_ he finalized to himself, looking down at his pale hands, tracing every slender finger with his pitch black pupils in sorrow, watching his knuckles move under his skin carefully, _"I made the wrong decisions. I cannot say that this end justifies the means, but I will have to live with my choices."_


End file.
